Lebanon, Eid Al Adha 2011

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Return to Beirut: A Love Letter
By
Randall D. Ball

Eight years ago, as a single man who was a mere thirty years old, I traveled alone to my beloved Middle East for the first time. I was centered in Beirut, Lebanon, and wrote of my experiences in my first-ever travelogue. Now it’s 2011, and I have returned to Beirut, numerous travelogues later. I return to Lebanon as a married man with two small children, and as an expat teacher now living in the Middle East. I wondered who had changed more—Beirut or me? That may have been the wrong question, however, because perhaps neither of us has changed that much after nearly a decade.

I booked us into the same hotel in the Hamra district of Beirut, and we walked the same streets that I meandered through eight years ago: along Rue Hamra and the Corniche, past the famed, overly-touristy Pigeon Rocks, by the walls of the American University of Beirut, even ending up at the same spot for lunch on our first full day in Lebanon: at the Hard Rock Café overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Not much had changed; I was just sharing the experience this time. Anastasia and Talula enjoyed lunch at the Hard Rock. They both ate with gusto (it’s a rare moment when both girls have simultaneous, hearty appetites), and afterwards, they played around the small stage in the nearly-empty restaurant. It was lunchtime on a slow Saturday, and even the waitress joined in the fun, playing with the girls.

They must have played hard. By the time we worked our way back along the Corniche, around the bend in the peninsula up to the Pigeon Rocks, they were asleep in their strollers. Christine and I enjoyed a coffee al fresco, soaking in the mildly warm sun that was finally overcoming the chilly morning showers. By the time we returned to the Mayflower Hotel, it was fairly late in the afternoon. We opted for some shwarma on Rue Hamra, about a block and a half from the hotel.

Sunday, we joined a half-day tour to the Jeita grotto, eighteen kilometers northeast of Beirut. The tour guide picked us up an hour late, which is irritating enough even before you add two small, impatient kids into the mix. Fortunately, Talula slept on the hour-long bus ride through town and up the coast into the mountains (it seems that no matter where you go in Beirut, no matter which way, or both ways, you end up going straight up). Christine’s arms were tired holding her for so long, but she’s easier to hold when she’s asleep than when she is squirming. I spent my time amusing Anastasia with a made-up game called “tickets.” Don’t ask. It’s complicated.

We took a gondola ride to the upper grotto, which was surprising in that we still had more “up” to go after climbing the mountain by bus. Anastasia seemed really interested in “flying” in the gondola; she kept repeating, “up and down, up and down” and “fly…fly.” The grotto was an incredible sight: massive caverns with crystallized stalagmites protruding from the cave floor and stalactites acting as chandeliers. A truly awe-inspiring place. Then we took a kiddie train (how quickly natural beauty is supplanted with man’s folly) to the lower grotto. We could have walked, but Anastasia insisted on the train—and it was included in the ticket price anyway.

We took a brief boat tour of the lower grotto, motoring about the underground river as if we were on the River Styx. After riding the bus back down the mountain, we took another gondola and an additional funicular (we were covering all bases of transport today) to the top of a mountain in Harissa to see Our Lady of Lebanon, a statue of the Virgin Mary that presides over the coastal Mediterranean cities of Jounieh, Beirut, and Byblos. The church, statue, and surrounding property offered a great view above the bay around Jounieh.

This “half-day” tour ended around 4:30 in the afternoon. We were all pretty tired.

In the morning, we joined a full-day tour, which started on time and ended at 5:00 p.m. Apparently, the difference between “full day” and “half day” is ninety minutes. Our tour this time was in a little van, but we filled out the relatively roomy backseat. The girls were well-behaved, and unlike our trip to Sri Lanka earlier this year, no one got sick as we made our way up and over the mountain range into the Bekaa Valley. Our first stop was at the Umayyad ruins of Aanjar, an Islamic archaeological site that was discovered entirely by accident in the 1940s. It previously had been lost in trees, its actual city walls covered in mud. Its location was significant in trading—along the route between Damascus and Palestine.

At Aanjar, Anastasia kept climbing on rocks and posing, asking us to take her picture, or “pickwick,” as she says. Talula played with pebbles and sticks, acting as if she had never seen such things. Then again, she is from Abu Dhabi. She probably hasn’t seen such natural artifacts. Both girls, in fact, were quite fascinated with rain as well. Of course, after being in the United Arab Emirates for five years, Christine and I were just as appreciative of the precipitation.

We continued onward into the Bekaa Valley, an infamous Hezbollah stronghold not far from the Syrian border. On several occasions, vendors offered me Hezbollah t-shirts. I resisted.

We also passed numerous Palestinian refugee camps before reaching the Roman ruins at Baalbek. We took the quick, kid-friendly self-guided tour, which meant stopping for fifteen minutes at a little hole in some rock where the girls played, and then spending thirty seconds admiring the Temples of Bacchus and Jupiter.

From Baalbek we traveled to Ksara, where we toured a fascinating winery that keeps its barrels of wine in ancient caves, perfect for maintaining a certain degree of temperature and humidity. The tour was followed with a wine tasting. Anastasia was not much interested in what we were doing, but Talula enthusiastically sampled a few drops of each wine. She was a big hit among our fellow travelers, who laughed as she tried to suck each wine glass dry.

We had a late group lunch in a hotel dining room in Ksara. A man from Jordan sat across from us and commented on Anastasia’s eating habits. She was tearing tiny bits of Arabic bread and dipping them gently into hummus.

“I love the way eat,” he commented. “Children are such a blessing.”

At that moment Anastasia took a huge piece of bread and stuffed all of it into her mouth. She looked at him, choking on her bread, as if to say, “Do you like the way I eat now, sucker?”

On the drive back to Beirut, we became friendly with a young Indian couple from Dubai who were seated in front of us in the van. Anastasia and Talula played with them vigorously, for want of a better adverb.

Tuesday was our last full day in Lebanon. We walked past the American University of Beirut, where Christine took several photos of graffiti, much of it calling for revolution, anarchy, or other wise engage in attacks upon the powers-that-be. Other examples of “freedom scrawl” urged people to kill their televisions and “Make designers, not clothes.” Ras Beirut, as the area is known, is quite the “college town” in that way.

We walked past the port to downtown Beirut, where we spent some time around the ruins of a Roman bath. A friendly, local old codger gave the girls some chocolate while I marveled over the fact that I could find the Lebanese Parliament, the Roman baths, and the Place d’Etoile amid all the recent Solidere construction. Eight years ago, I could use landmarks such as the clock tower at the Place d’Etoile to find my way around, but now, the construction that began in the 1990s (after the destruction of the previous decade) obstructs such views. Anastasia and Talula didn’t mind, though, because the pigeons still congregate around the clock tower, and they spent an hour chasing the birds around the square. They clearly had a blast. We managed to tear them away from the birds long enough to eat lunch at an outdoor café near the square, and then they spent another hour chasing pigeons.

On our way back to the hotel, we paused to admire the beautiful Al-Omari Mosque and to see the Place des Martyrs (Martyrs’ Square), where the Ottomans once executed a handful of Lebanese nationalists during World War I.

Then we retraced our steps, stopping for tasty crepes across from the American University before returning to the Mayflower. We had spent a busy few days in Lebanon, but it was winding down. My return to Lebanon was different in certain outward appearances; Beirut’s skyline has evolved just as my own life has, but the Land of the Cedars is intrinsically the same country, even as it adapts. In that, we are alike.